"On every play, if you're a (skill player) like Motley, Washington, or Strode, you can get pounded on the ground and beaten up," Greenburg said. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, unloading bombs in the Pacific. According to Disneyland Vice President Tony Baxter, "In 1954. He said, "Well, they're not tough enough to do what I want Sergeant Rutledge to be. He broke this barrier with his teammate Kenny Washington and Cleveland Browns players Bill Willis and Marion Motley. He explains: "The Western is intrinsically the most political movie genre, because, like Plato's 'Republic,' it is concerned with the founding of cities, and because it depicts the various abstract functions of government as direct, physical actions." What is it whats the idea? And I said, I dont know!, And I didnt know, Stewart added. But Rutledge faces it heroically and is not passive either, even breaking ranks and official orders to try to track down the evidence and the real killer who will clear him. We both gotta be professionals. It's clear they loved him. [17] He later teamed up with both Bobo Brazil[18] and Bearcat Wright. As played by Jimmy Stewart, Stoddard spends much of the film wearing an apron and washing dishes in the restaurant, sending a hardly ambiguous message about a man who doesn't wear a gun. But he also was described once as a tough, two-fisted, hard-drinking Irish sonofabitch who was known to treat actors on his films horribly, by bullying, yelling and even mocking them. After his football career, he went on to become a film actor, where he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960. In 1959 he portrayed the conflicted, some would say cowardly, Private Franklin in Pork Chop Hill, which brought him critical acclaim. Luana Strode), a distant relative of Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii. Waterfield laughs and says: You sons of bitches, youre living good., Strode by then was in his early 30s and his football days were numbered. ", - IMDb Mini Biography By: [20], He based himself in Europe from 1968 to 1971.[7]. Doubling as a defender, Strode scooped an errant lateral at midfield and returned the fumble to the opposing red zone, teeing up a TD rush. [25], His first wife was Princess Luukialuana Kalaeloa (a.k.a. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, How Green Was My Valley among his some 140 films he directed in his career. Shinbone is the only Western town I've seen in a movie with no prostitutes. He could be seen in The Gambler from Natchez (1954), Jungle Gents (1954) a Bowery Boys movie set in Africa, and The Silver Chalice (1954). Two Rode Together is a 1961 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring James Stewart, Richard Widmark, and Shirley Jones. Even when Ford later directed the passing drama Pinky in 1949 for Fox, which told the story of a blackwoman passing for white, Fox studio head Darryl Zanuck replaced Ford with director Elia Kazan after the first week of shooting, because Zanuck, in seeing the footage that Ford shot, felt his depiction of the black characters in the film was so offensive that he couldnt allow him to continue directing the rest of the film. He was drafted at age 27 and soon joined the United States Army Air Corps and spent the war unloading bombs in Guam and the Marianas, as well as playing on the Army football team at March Field in Riverside, California.[10]. [21], He had a support role in Tarzan's Fight for Life (1958) and a small part in The Buccaneer (1958). A handful of Black players suited up in the NFL in the league's earliest seasons, but franchise owners at the behest of George Preston Marshall, the segregationist founder of the Washington team, conspired to exclude them from 1934 to 1946. At 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, Strode was an athletic marvel in his prime. The retired NFL wideout, in tandem with his co-author Bob Glauber, persuaded the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022 to recognize the so-called Forgotten Four as pathfinders. An old black cowboy named Pompey ( Woody Strode) takes Hallie on a buckboard ride into the countryside where they regard the burned-out remains of Doniphon's cottage. Strode and teammate Kenny Washington were among the best-known college football players in the nation. Canton called this summer, feting Strode and the rest of the Forgotten Four at Johnson and Glauber's urging. John Ford has gone down as one of the greatest directors ever in film history. It takes place in the town of Shinbone, in an unnamed territory that is moving toward a vote on statehood. The roles he was offered fell within those limited, though notable range. He could beat Glenn Morris, the 1936 Olympic gold-medal decathlete, in all of his events except sprints. I'd play a Viking with blue contact lenses and a blond wig.". Woody played for the Los Angeles Rams after their move from Cleveland. 1951: The Lion Hunters; Bride of the Gorilla. "The ban mirrored the status of Black Americans at the time: separate, unequal, and living in a de facto apartheid state via Jim Crow in the South and a patchwork of exclusionary laws and customs everywhere else," Patrick Hruby has written at The Guardian. He was in The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961) and guest starred twice on Rawhide, playing an Australian aboriginal in one episode and a buffalo soldier in the other. The same thing will happen again to another black man, and he probably wont be as lucky as Rutledge was. In 1967 he attempted to produce his own film, The Story of the Tenth Cavalry but it was not made. UsefulNotes/Notable Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age. "I had a certain amount of crudeness that went back a hundred years, and that's what he liked. As the two actors filmed an exterior shot on a horse-drawn cart, Wayne was close to losing control of the horses. When Strode tried to help him, Duke knocked his co-star away. Pompey actor Woody Strode remembered that Ford "kept needling Duke about his failure to make it as a football player", comparing him to Strode who was a former NFL player. Thankfully, the show never subjected Woody - or viewers - to that possibility. Strode also played the powerful gladiator who does battle with Kirk Douglas in Spartacus (1960). Strode, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, died of lung cancer in Los Angeles in 1994 at the age of 80. All structured data from the file namespace is available under the. The two became friends, and Ford later gave Wayne his breakthrough role in Stagecoach, the film that launched Wayne to Hollywood stardom. While some reviewers and historians claim he could have been a more well-known and cast minority actor if not for his size and physically strong appearance, more along the lines of Sidney Poitier, a near contemporary, Hollywood of the past and present still has few positive roles outside of the stereotypical for ethnic males. They were unable to find anyone to play the Ethiopian king so Strode was given that role too. But Strode (who started his career in the early 1940s after a legendary athletic record at UCLA as a decathlete and a football star, and who died in 1994) is perfectly cast in the lead role as Rutledge and gives a powerful performance in one of the very few lead roles he ever played, among the 90+ films he appeared in, playing mostly supporting roles, sometimes even uncredited, during the early years of his film career. Strode also had a brief career as a professional gridiron football player and was among the first African . Strode, the six-foot-four pioneering athlete turned movie star, was born in 1914, in South Central Los Angeles, to Black and Native American parents. He wrestled professionally before rapt audiences. He wasan outstanding athlete before his entry into movies. Strode had an excellent support part in The Last Voyage (1960) playing a heroic stoker, though he was only billed fifth. [3], "I got a cultural educationmajored in history and education," he said in a 1971 interview. Country. Caleb Williams: 'I'd probably go to the Dolphins' if given c LSU's Nabers won't face charges after weapon arrest, Willie Taggart hired as Ravens' RBs coach, Florida loses defensive coordinator Patrick Toney to NFL, LSU's Nabers charged with illegal carrying of a weapon, Revamped AAC releases 2023 slate with 6 new schools. In 1964, there was his penultimate work, the nearly three-hour-long roadshow western epic Cheyenne Autumn, complete with an intermission, a70MM Super Panavision print, released by Warners, which told the true story of a Cheyenne tribe who travel by foot across 1,500 miles back to their ancestral hunting grounds, while US Army troops are ordered to send them back by force if necessary. In 1946 he was one of the first blacks to play in the National Football League. Tom has long considered Hallie "my girl," and is adding a room to his farmhouse that has a nice porch with a rocking chair, in preparation for the day he has no doubt she will marry him. Woody Strode weighed 205 lbs (92 kg) when playing. I might have to kill you. He appeared in any number of other films, among them The Ten Commandments (1956). He went on to depict myriad gunslingers at home and abroad. Nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his. He was interred with military honors at Riverside National Cemetery, east of his hometown. Valuing his toughness, Ford cast Strode as Rutledge over future Oscar winners Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode (July 25, 1914 December 31, 1994) was an American athlete and actor. Strode had begun his association with Ford back in 1939, with an uncredited role in his classic western 'Stagecoach'. [10] Strode and Kenny Washington were two of the first African-Americans to play in major college programs and later the modern National Football League (along with Marion Motley and Bill Willis, who signed with the contemporary rival All-America Football Conference), playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946. Files are available under licenses specified on their description page. Sheriff Woody, the beloved "Toy Story" protagonist, was said to be named after Strode. It may not be the greatest film that Ford ever made, but it sure is one of his interesting and powerful films and definitely worth discovering. "The big studios wanted an actor like Sidney [Poitier] or [Harry] Belafonte," recalled Strode. He decided to stay in Europe. And he said loudly, We have an actor here who objects to the costume on Woody Strode. He then proceeded to suggest that Stewart was prejudiced Strode, who also has since died, was African-American and added that he just wanted to share Stewarts objection to Strodes costume with the whole cast. If someone said, 'there's a Negro over there,' I was just as apt as anyone to turn around and say 'Where? Western icon John Wayne had a legendary collaboration with director John Ford that lasted five decades and transformed both mens careers. I'd play a Viking with blue contact lenses and a blond wig if I could. Another well-known role was Pompey, John Waynes servant in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Additionally, the director kept mocking Wayne for not enlisting in World War II, which made the star feel guilty in his later years. "They are not household names like Jackie Robinson. Strode's later appearances included Cuba Crossing (1980),The Dukes of Hazzard (1980), Scream (1981), Fantasy Island (1981), Vigilante (1982), Invaders of the Lost Gold (1982), Angkor: Cambodia Express (1983), The Black Stallion Returns (1983), The Violent Breed (1984), Jungle Warriors (1984), The Cotton Club (1984), The Final Executioner (1984), Lust in the Dust (1985), On Fire (1987), and A Gathering of Old Men (1987). Nationality: American. When a meeting is held to vote on statehood, Pompey sits outside on the porch. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Next James Bond: Tom Hardy leapfrogged by 007 outsider, Robert Shaw Harrison Ford fury on Force 10 From Navarone 'total bull', John Wayne was really p***ed off: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was miserable shoot, John Wayne was constantly mocked by John Ford and even Jimmy Stewart was attacked too, Rio Bravo: Angie Dickinson on cute John Wayne being so different', Pompey star Woody Strode on John Wayne's left, John Wayne felt he couldn't hit back at John Ford since the director made him a star, John Wayne: The Searchers set revelation that saw John Ford speechless, How the West Was Won: Idiot drunk producer, near-death and more, John Wayne: Why Elvis turned down Dukes offer to co-star in Western, John Wayne: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon set feud that led to best scene, John Waynes final movie was NOT The Shootist Duke was in Star Wars, John Wayne never learnt his lesson over Hollywood roles. The character was named after Woody Strode, the legendary Spartacus actor who starred in numerous Westerns throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Stoddard believes so firmly in the law that he is willing to lose his life for his principles. And according to the actor, Ford froze, then walked away. The film was based upon the 1959 novel Comanche Captives by Will Cook . But Ford had a cruel streak, PBS reports, and it emerged on the set of his movies. By the mid 1960s Strode had become a respected craftsman and began to make his biggest imprint in Spaghetti Westerns, particularly in Sergio Leones Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Wednesday, 1st March 2023See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, order back issues and use the historic Daily Express newspaper archive. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Ford used him again in Two Rode Together (1962) but it was only a small part, as an Indian. And Duke came up to me one day and said, Hows it come that youve gone through this whole thing and youve never been at the bottom of the list? On top of that, in the early 1930's, Ford also made several films with long-lambasted black character . Woodrow Wilson Strode, known as Woody, was a big man on campus. "You can't tell the story of the National Football League without telling the story of these four men," he added. Is Woody Strode in the Hall of Fame? Perseverance. He broke two ribs and a shoulder. The result was a few films in which he seemed to be, in a way, making an apology for the wrongs he committed in terms ofhis distorted portrayals of people of color in his previous films. He had a bigger role in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) for Ford, playing Pompey, John Wayne's hired hand. His mother was full-blooded Blackfoot, and he played often, Indians in John Ford's films. 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